Mike Riley's regret? Coaching Chargers

Mike Riley (1999-2001) - Then-GM Bobby Beathard, in his last coaching hire, plucked Riley off the Oregon State campus, confident his enthusiasm would be embraced by NFL players. Riley went 8-8 in his debut season, then produced the worst year in team history at 1-15. When he followed with a 5-11 showing, new GM John Butler fired him and turned to Marty Schottenheimer.

Mike Riley (1999-2001) - Then-GM Bobby Beathard, in his last coaching hire, plucked Riley off the Oregon State campus, confident his enthusiasm would be embraced by NFL players. Riley went 8-8 in his debut season, then produced the worst year in team history at 1-15. When he followed with a 5-11 showing, new GM John Butler fired him and turned to Marty Schottenheimer.

Mike, if you could have done anything differently during your time coaching the Chargers, what would it have been?

Riley paused for two seconds and grinned.

“I wouldn’t have done it,” he said.

That was Riley in July at Pac-12 media day, where the Oregon State football coach couldn’t have been more relaxed if he were midway through a massage. But had it been a bit more than a decade earlier — when Riley was in the midst of a 1-15 season, or losing one of the 14 leads his teams blew in the final three minutes, or watching the quarterback he begged the Chargers to draft emasculate his defense — he may not have been so in tune with his chi.

Today, the Beavers (2-1) are in town to take on winless San Diego State, marking the first time that Riley will coach in San Diego since he was fired as the Chargers’ coach in 2001. This time, however, the 60-year-old is expected to do something at Qualcomm Stadium that became increasingly foreign during his three-year tenure with the Bolts: Win.

“I realized that I had taken the job not being prepared for it,” said Riley, now in the 11th year of his second stint at OSU. “I hadn’t coached in the NFL. I hadn’t been a coordinator — I hadn’t even coached in the league.”

Oh, preparation schmeparation. Through his first five games, Mike Riley looked like football’s version of Pat Riley. The Chargers were 4-1. The Chargers were in first place.

The Chargers would lose the next six before missing the playoffs by a game.

Riley wasn’t deterred, though. In fact, his second year could have started magically if the NFL didn’t have this annoying rule about not counting preseason games. But after going 4-0 through the exhibition schedule, the Chargers finished the 2000 season 1-15. Sigh 2K.

“Horrible,” said Riley, who was given one more year to try to bounce back.

Which led us to question No. 2.

Was there one game, good or bad, that particularly stood out to you?

“That New England game,” said Riley, referring to the 2001 contest in which second-year quarterback Tom Brady turned a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit into an overtime win. “We were 3-1, they were 1-3, and Drew Bledsoe had just gotten hurt. They ended up going to the Super Bowl. We ended up winning one more game.”

Riley had implored the Chargers to pick Brady late in the 2000 draft, but that has been documented for years. What the public may be less familiar with is that — in the mid-1990s, when he was the offensive coordinator at USC — Riley had been recruiting Brady and was confident that the Trojans would land him.

But then-USC coach John Robinson informed him that, because of the signing of Quincy Woods, there would be no more scholarships available for quarterbacks.

“So that was my first chance to coach Tom Brady,” Riley said, laughing.